Boom of Private Space: High on the "Space Coast"

She has maintained her enthusiasm. To date, Pat Christian follows every rocket launch. From her front yard or from the beach she can see a bright ray rising into the sky on the other side of the Indian River and slowly disappearing.

"The windows shake, the dog barks, the cat runs away." That's how it feels when a rocket is launched over at Cape Canaveral. Do you ever get used to it? "No way!"

Christian sits at the pier of Titusville, from where you have a good view of the spectacle. Over there, on the other side of the river, the facade of the NASA hangar flickers, on the right are ramps, on one is already waiting for the next rocket.

Marc Pitzke / SPIEGEL ONLINE

A life for space: Pat Christian in Titusville

The spaceport on Florida's east coast is suddenly active again after years of quieting it. Since NASA mothballed most of its programs in 2011, the site was gradually deserted - and the surrounding area, which many call the "Space Coast", rattled into recession.

Now, of all things, the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing is back in full swing, thanks also to private corporations such as SpaceX, the company of Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, or Blue Origin, the company of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

The area is booming as it used to be - and also the 68-year-old Pat Christian is thriving. Already as a child she wanted to be an astronomer, in 1988 she landed at Nasa, supervised astronauts, VIP guests, reporters. She experienced every take-off, landing, and even the "Columbia" accident after which she grieved for weeks. In July 2011, the last Space Shuttle retired, and a week later, Christian.

Now the retiree is happy about the sudden rocket renaissance. "We're all a big family," Christian says of the professional and private space nerds in the Brevard district, which includes well over a dozen other coastal communities in addition to the famed Cape Canaveral.

Marc Pitzke / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Make old again: Starting ramps in Cape Canaveral

The rebirth of the "Space Coast" is more than nostalgia: it is a small economic miracle.

Space and tourism have always been the main industries in this marshy area. Closely interlinked they animated the gastronomy, the retail trade, the real estate market. At the height of the Apollo era in the sixties and seventies, the "Space Coast" was also a party mecca. "It was like the Wild West," says Ben Malik, mayor of Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral.

Then began an economic ascent and descent: With the end of the Apollo missions in 1972, the economy collapsed first. The space shuttle program provided from 1981 for a new upswing. As of 2011, the US Congress also turned this to the money.

photo gallery

19 pictures

It seemed to be the final death blow for the region, where schools and streets are named after astronauts. There are two space museums here, dining in the Orbit Café, spending the night at the Satellite Motel, and the phone code sounds like a countdown: 321.

More than 25,000 people have lost their jobs as a result of the rocket recession, not only in NASA, but also in hotels, restaurants, and stores that depend on the space industry. The unemployment rate rose to twelve percent.

"It was a hard time," says Lynda Weatherman, head of the Space Coast Economic Development Commission, the district's main development agency. "I have been in business for 40 years, and for the first time I have had to engage the Salvation Army because many people no longer had a roof over their heads."

Marc Pitzke / SPIEGEL ONLINE

"Like in the Wild West": Ben Malik, the mayor of Cocoa Beach

"I grew up with Nasa," says Dale Ketchum, vice president of Space Florida, a state-run agency that promotes the region and distributes subsidies. "It's great when everything goes well, but if the main employer goes down, it hurts."

Space Florida was founded in 2006 when the end of the shuttle era began to dawn. "We made a conscious decision," says Ketchum. "We no longer rely on the government, but are also looking for commercial providers."

Traveling around the world to advertise and learn, Detroit faced the auto crisis with a new tech industry, Singapore and Ireland explored, two states that were cornering again after economic crises.

Finally, three billionaires rushed to the rescue: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson gave the "Space Coast" a new chance.

SPACEX / AFP

Commercial ambitions: Space-X launch in May 2019

Today, the region is once again one of the busiest space centers in the world: nowhere else will more companies gather to go into space or provide such plans.

• The old ramp 39A, from which Apollo 11 headed for the moon and the "Challenger" shuttle on its fatefully short journey, is now reserved for Musk's SpaceX .
• Bezos' Blue Origin has taken ramp 36.
• And the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is using two NASA launch complexes nearby.

In 2018, 20 missiles launched from the peninsula, six this year already. If it goes to Nasa and the Air Force, which has the command on the site, it will soon be at least 48 per year.

In the Exploration Park, a new industrial zone, Blue Origin is building its New Glenn rocket in an enormous blue hall, named after John Glenn, the first American in space. Boeing has leased the Kennedy Space Center's old space shuttle hangar, Lockheed Martin an adjacent NASA hangar.

Marc Pitzke / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Dining Galactically: The Orbit Café at the Kennedy Space Center

Smaller start-ups also tried to profit from the new tech boom. It was the birth of a new "Space Coast", which is not only a spaceport, but also a production facility for rockets, satellites and equipment that used to be assembled elsewhere.

The old monoculture has become such a diversified industry. This also means that new talents are in demand, not just rocket makers, but also physicists, programmers, designers. "We compete with Silicon Valley and Seattle," says Ketchum of Space Florida.

Accordingly, the region is now doing well again. The unemployment rate was only 3.1 percent last - still below the US-wide average of 3.4 percent. "Comeback Coast", hit the "Washington Post", the industry service "SpaceNews" wrote of the "turn of the year".

Housing estates are being created everywhere for employees of private space corporations, including schools, shopping malls, luxury hotels. The real estate prices attract. Also Cocoa Beach is freshly scrubbed, new pubs open.

Marc Pitzke / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Look: Soldiers are waiting for a rocket launch

The Highway 50 and the narrow dams over the Indian River are clogged for hours again, as the onlookers set up their folding chairs to use binoculars and telephoto lenses to target the next rocket launch.

more on the subject

Multimedia StoryFly me to the moon

And for the jubilee of the lunar load of 1969, the "Space Coast" revels again in the old glamor. There has already been an astronaut parade, an "Apollo open-air concert," panel discussions on "Women in Space" and "The Future of Spaceflight," as well as a gala at the Kennedy Space Center. The anniversary will be "a big deal," says Malik.

Pat Christian, however, is likely to be back in her front yard on Sunday night or down by the water. The next SpaceX missile, a Falcon 9, will be launched at 19.32 with provisions, equipment and equipment for the International Space Station ISS.

"There is nothing better," she says.